The week before school

I have been getting ready in my head. I'm planning out what the first day of school is going to look like. I am reading Tools For Teaching and figuring out what systems I will need to have ready in order to change the atmosphere in my classroom. My second year students are going to be in for a rude awakening...

First, I am going to change the setup of my classroom at one school (where I have my own classroom) to make life easiest. Then , each desk will have a number taped to it to facilitate seating charts.

I want to make a large, color sign for my door that says something like "Caution: Entering Work Area" to create a distinction between the social hallway and my quiet classroom.

I need to check on my question signs and see if I need to change/add any questions there.

I want to take some white bulletin board paper and tape it up around my room for writing structures. One of the things I learned by being a student in Blaine's classroom is how important these visuals are. I knew exactly where to look if a word/structure hadn't stuck in my head yet. And even now, when I think back to our story, my mind visualizes the word paper and I can remember what the structures mean...

That's all I can think of for now. I'm sure I'll be adding once I read more of Tools for Teaching and actually get into my classroom